On a knuckle lift high in the air, Rob “ProBlak” Gibbs works on “Breathe Life Together,” the next mural to be featured on the façade of the Dewey Square Tunnel Air Intake Structure on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. The milestone isn't lost on the seasoned muralist. Connecting several of Boston's major areas like South Station, the Seaport and the Financial District, the Greenway has featured massive murals and other art installations for years. But Gibbs is the first homegrown artist to be asked to create a mural for the Greenway. "The Greenway is like the gateway to so much of Boston," Gibbs points out. "It may not have the value of the element, but the visible effect of it."įor Gibbs, the mural at the Rose Kennedy Greenway is a vastly different project from his other "Breathe Life" murals that enliven walls in Roxbury and Dorchester. "Whatever is dipped or mixed inside of it or whatever it touches is literally liquid gold," he says. The gold is absent in the photo but it was important for Gibbs to incorporate the color in the mural.
In it, she crouches down, eyes level with the camera, dressed in a Kangol hat and Adidas tracksuit, flanked by a large boombox. Gibbs based the mural on a portrait taken by photographer Gabriel Ortiz for her third birthday. The gold gleams in the top left portion of the mural, a halo of sorts around the head of the mural's subject - Gibbs' 4-year-old daughter. Rob “ProBlak” Gibbs applies gold paint with a roller as he creates “Breathe Life Together,” the next mural to be featured on the façade of the Dewey Square Tunnel Air Intake Structure on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. "And I'm still not done," he jokes, pointing to the receipt. so we have to constantly have someone stirring it." At this point, he's sprayed over the gilded area again and again to get it saturated to his satisfaction. "It's one of those things that if it sits still long enough, it starts to separate. It's a special, bright gilded gold but the color has become somewhat of a thorn in Gibbs' side as he finishes his massive new mural at the Rose Kennedy Greenway, titled "Breathe Life Together." "It has to stay active," he explains. He unfolds a creased receipt from his pocket and reads it out loud. "I'm about $300 in for two gallons of paint," Rob "ProBlak" Gibbs says with a laugh. The likeness of the daughter of muralist Rob “ProBlak” Gibbs peers around the trees in Dewey Square in Gibbs’ work “Breathe Life Together,” the next mural to be featured on the façade of the Dewey Square Tunnel Air Intake Structure on the Rose Kennedy Greenway.
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